


Long Road

by cofax



Series: This is Not Wartime [8]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Apocafic, This is Not Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> Just a couple of thousand Tau'ri too stupid to know they're beaten.</i>  Posted July 2004.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Road

The porch is cluttered with moldy plastic chairs, some dead marigolds in an old laundry bucket, and a grease-spattered Weber grill. Sam doesn't mind: just being outside is a relief, and she takes deep soft breaths of the humid September air.

 

"Hey." An elbow pokes her in the ribs; she steps out of the way so the colonel can come out onto the porch as well. It's well after midnight, and she fumbles her right hand along the curved and sticky back of one of the chairs, guiding herself to the railing. Before the war there would be light in the sky before them: cars going by on Memorial Drive, a night game at Fenway Park, the profligate lights of the skyscrapers in the financial district. Now there's a faint glow from some military traffic along the river, but that's all: Boston is under blackout.

 

"You talk to Marie?" O'Neill is a blurred shape in the darkness to her right.

 

She shakes her head. "No, but Derek told me what happened. Do you think--"

 

"No, it's wasted effort. We'll have to give up that cell."

 

"Wasted effort" means the six men and women who risked their lives infiltrating the goa'uld stronghold in upstate New York are dead, or will be soon.

 

Teal'c told Sam, once, about being tortured by the goa'uld; about what they used, about how it felt. She needed to know, felt it was important that she know what she risked every time she went through the gate. Now she wishes she didn't know: she trained all six members of the compromised cell. Before the war, Liz was an associate professor of immunology at Harvard. Frank was a technical editor for a computer company on the North Shore, and John was an emergency management specialist for the mayor of Boston.

 

"You can't just--"

 

"I have to." There's no emotion in O'Neill's voice, and Sam closes her eyes against the grief she knows underlies it. She wants to put her hand out to him, but instead she closes it tight over the wooden railing. He will not be touched, not since Teal'c disappeared.

 

Daniel would have known what to say. Sam has tried not to think of Daniel these last months: there's been no time, and it hurts too much. This is not a life Daniel would want; no time for study, no room for ethical concerns, for the value of human life. If he were here, he would argue with Jack about everything, and translate messages into Navajo code or something, and die a little more every day.

 

Sam can't remember the last time she hugged anyone. What she does remember is that Daniel liked his coffee with sugar, and fresh pasta, and that his eyebrows operated independently of his hands when he was trying to explain something to Jack.

 

They are losing this war. They may have already lost it, and they're just wasting their efforts. Maybe there are no Tok'ra anymore, no Asgard, no Nox. Just a couple of thousand Tau'ri too stupid to know they're beaten.

 

"What's the word on that transmitter?"

 

Sam blinks, caught off guard. From his faint silhouette against the trees, she thinks the colonel is looking at her. She shrugs, swipes her forehead against the shoulder of her t-shirt. "We're getting there. The guys at Draper don't have all the equipment we need, but they're creative and smart. Maybe another couple of weeks. If I had my--"

 

Her lab is buried in a million tons of dust and radioactive rubble under Cheyenne Mountain. Along with the gate, and whatever SGC staff were on duty that Saturday. Nothing in her lab can help her now.

 

"Yeah." O'Neill rests his hands on the railing, almost touching hers.

 

She swallows. "I was thinking about Daniel. Wondering if maybe he could have--"

 

"Don't." He puts one hand on hers, gently despite his words. She can feel the calluses on his palm, and she turns her hand over to clasp his.

 

"He's gone, Carter." O'Neill's voice is rough, almost broken, and she tightens her grip compulsively. "We can't afford to--"

 

"To what? Mourn?" He can't ask her to forget them. It would be like forgetting herself. The anger surprises her, and she tries to let go, but he won't let her.

 

"No, stop it. Carter, we can't look backwards. We can't, it'll kill us." His hand is damp, tacky with sweat the way her whole body is.

 

She shakes her head in blind denial, and tries to find his eyes in the dark blob of his face. "You can't ask that, sir. I--it's what we are." She can't say _why_ it's wrong, but she knows it bone-deep, knows this would be a betrayal of all those who had died, of Teal'c and Daniel, of Benson and Patel, of General Hammond and Siler and Davis. Of Liz and John and Frank, screaming on a table three hundred miles to the west. "It's why we're not _them_."

 

"Oh, c'mon, Carter. Don't be naive. We're not them because we haven't had their opportunities. Or do you think the massacre in Chicago was a fluke?"

 

Sam has no response to that: she saw the pictures, and heard the stories about Lagos and Moscow. Humans are as capable of turning on one another as any other species. Being under goa'uld occupation just gives them someone new to blame.

 

There's a bang downstairs, and the thump of feet racing up the stairs to the kitchen. Sam and the colonel both turn as a light comes on inside. "Colonel! Colonel O'Neill!" Marie bursts through the door and stumbles against one of the deck chairs; it skitters several feet before O'Neill grabs it.

 

Marie, a tiny Filipina in a cut-off MIT t-shirt, waves her hands with more enthusiasm than Sam has witnessed from anyone in weeks. "We just got a message from the Deerfield group!"

 

O'Neill crosses his arms. "And?" Their Deerfield cell is made up of three state troopers and two UMass graduate students in linguistics and anthropology. Not exactly a stronghold of the resistance.

 

"They say a Jaffa named Teal'c has contacted them, he sent a message for you."

 

Sam gasps and covers her mouth. The colonel shoots her a hard look. "What's the message?" he asks Marie.

 

She pulls a crumpled bit of paper out of her pocket. O'Neill takes it and moves into the doorway. It's a bit of old newspaper, folded small. The penciled words looks like Teal'c's blocky script.

 

_Sixteen squadrons are ready to turn. Tell O'Neill: I can save these people, if you help me. T_

 

"Thanks, Marie." With a nod, the colonel dismisses Marie, who fades back into the kitchen after an uncertain look at Sam.

 

_Not dead. _

 

O'Neill doesn't move until long after the sound of Marie's footsteps have faded. He touches the text on the paper, turns it over, folds it and opens it again. "August 17, 2003."

 

Sam swallows. "Sir?"

 

"The date on this newspaper." He points at a line of text too faint for Sam to read in this light. "Just a couple days before."

 

_Not dead not dead not dead_

 

"Colonel, what will we--" He waves her to silence, his face caught between anger and concentration.

 

It's so quiet she can hear the sound of a truck on Memorial Drive. Sam looks out over the yard. She can see a few stars above the trees. Maybe the weather will break, and they'll get some relief from the heat.

 

Teal'c isn't dead. Somehow he found a new symbiote, and did what he went to do.

 

"Son of a bitch." O'Neill tucks the scrap of paper into the pocket of his jeans and turns to look out at the city. There's a breeze rising, a faint one, and Sam shivers as the sweat cools on her arms. It feels good.

 

She ventures a smile. "Dead _false_ gods, sir?"

 

A laugh cracks out of him explosively. "Yeah, like that. Guess you'll have to get that transmitter going, Carter."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

O'Neill hesitates a moment, then drapes a comfortable arm across Sam's shoulders. He's warm but she doesn't mind. She lets herself lean into him, wraps her arm around his waist. He fingers the sleeve of her t-shirt.

 

They watch the sky to the west as the light comes up behind them.


End file.
